Archive for October, 2009

Despite earning a degree in film and video, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Netflix. I have a subscription, of course, but rarely watch the DVDs that are delivered to my home. In fact, I’ve had the same movie sitting on my endtable for months (Jean Renoir’s La Bete Humaine for those who are curious). I used to watch movies on a regular basis and have convinced myself that Netflix will help me get back in the groove. But the truth of the matter is that I still only see movies occasionally, and when I do I almost always venture out to the theater for a more complete experience.

Most days, Mutts seems like a very lonely voice on the comics page. Its gentle, whimsical characters are surrounded by crude, loutish contemporaries. Its appeals to support animal shelters are drowned out by jaded, sarcastic punchlines. Its appreciation of nature’s simple pleasures are overshadowed by surreal, hyperactive dreamscapes. And it’s touching, old-fashioned sensibility is shown up by dated icons from another era. But with other strips focusing on the merits of volunteering this week, it seems as if Mutts has finally come out on top.

The dog in this strip seems genuinely excited to take a nap. So excited, in fact, that it might be hard for him to doze off. I’m not sure how it works for canines, but when I’m wound up I find it difficult to go to sleep. The one exception is chilly winter nights when I’m geeked to get underneath the warm covers and shut out the freezing temperatures, mounds of snow and filthy slush lurking outside my windows. But there’s a world of difference between a warm bed and a carpeted doorway. Then again, this dog may have a special talent that allows him to stop, drop, and snore, on command.

Out of curiosity, I Googled “things Google cannot help you with” and ended up with no results. Apparently, one of the things Google cannot help you with is a list of things Google cannot help you with. Either that, or the giant search engine company is overly confident. After all, the alternative search they suggested was “things Google can help you with.” Strangely enough, that also provided no results. I guess it’s time to start using Bing…

I was reading an article the other day about how married couples need to set aside time to date each other, especially if they have kids. Otherwise, mundane tasks can dominate a couple’s life and they can lose the emotional connection that drew them together in the first place. But while candlelit dinners are lovely, I’m pretty sure they’re not the type of thing the woman in this strip is asking her husband about. And while I understand the need for euphemisms in a family newspaper, I think this conversation would be a lot more direct (and interesting) if she substituted “sex life” for “love life.”

It was a glorious Indian Summer day in Chicago, with sunny skies and temperatures getting up into the ’60s. The weather was a welcome relief after a full week of cold and rain. It also gave me a perfect opportunity to hop on my bike and run errands this evening. It was so nice, in fact, that I ended up not using my jacket, opting instead to bike around town in a T-shirt. So if the lazy young man in today’s Family Circus is baffled by the notion that anything could be better than video games, I suggest he take a ride on the kids bike that is no doubt collecting dust in his parent’s garage.

When I was a kid, my friends and I debated whether or not it was possible to swing in a complete circle, looping around the top bar of a swing set. I was skeptical, although I secretly hoped that such a thing were possible. I would ask my dad to push me as hard as he could and would kick my legs out at the height of the swing. The higher I got, the more excited and nervous I became about clearing the crossbar. I also worried that my momentum wouldn’t carry me far enough, and that I would end up hitting my head on the metal swing set. Needless to say, the only time I saw a swing clear the crossbar when there was nobody sitting on it and my friends and I pushed the nearly weightless rubber as hard as we could, trying to prove a point.